The curiosities of the various members of our society are constantly driven to seek challenges whereby our wits, knowledge and skills can be pitted against other individuals in a competitive environment. These circumstances arise in a variety of situations, such as for amusement, to generate greater discourse among strangers having a common interest, to focus attention on a particular product or service for marketing and promotion purposes, or for a variety of other applications.
For example, riddles, trivia quizzes, and word games have been commonly used by radio and television broadcasters as well as newspaper and magazine publishers to accomplish one or more of these objectives. Many times these applications are presented in a serial manner with additional hints provided sequentially to entice and induce greater interest as individuals repeatedly return to the same media to participate in and to remain cognizant of the progressive development toward an ultimate solution and conclusion.
The obvious interest is spiked by the desire or fantasy of each participant to be the lucky recipient of the promised benefit, which may be nothing more than the realization that he or she won. Other benefactors of this arrangement include the sponsor of the activity, who may enhance the promotion of a particular product or service, and the media provider, who may realize more comprehensive circulation and distribution of his proffered services.
Another very important and not to be overlooked aspect of such an application is the opportunity to enhance our social environment by providing a common point of interest for discourse among members of society. For example, a group of strangers thrust upon each other could many times use a moderately involved activity to serve as an "icebreaker" to encourage development of discussions and familiarity therebetween.